Windy Road Ahead for San Diego County Residents

As the 2020 deadline for energy companies to procure the state-mandated 33 percent renewable energy approaches, residents living in rural parts of the county appear to be running against numerous wind and solar projects.

Tonight, members of the Boulevard Community Planning Group will be updated on several large wind-energy projects. One of which, the Iberdrola's Tule Wind project, has been stirring opposition in the community for months.

The project, a $500 million 200 megawatt wind farm off of Interstate 8 in Boulevard, will produce enough electricity for 130,000 homes. The environmental-impact report is expected out in weeks. But if the opposition letters in the draft environmental report are any indication, Iberdrola's proposed project will have a difficult time gaining ground.

In a February letter, Congressman Bob Filner criticized the proposal and others like it.

"I call for a moratorium on industrial and wind turbine project applications and approvals, until science-based and peer-reviewed health surveys and studies are done to determine what setback requirements are needed to protect public health and safety."

Representative Duncan Hunter also opposed the project. In his letter, Hunter averted to several "immitigable" environmental impacts.

"We must make every effort to ensure that these projects are developed in a manner that respects the residents of the community in which they are located. Indiscriminate placement of these resources in pursuit of energy or financial gains fails to protect the very individuals that proponents of these projects claim to be serving."

During tonight's community planning meeting, residents will review the project as well as other proposed wind and solar projects slated for eastern San Diego County.

It is time for everyone to take a closer look at the true character of the wind industry. For over 25 years there has been bird mortality/wind turbine cover-up. As it now stands at wind farms across the world, thousands of protected bird species are killed daily. I have been told by good sources the industry has been hiding the bodies of rare and endangered species for decades. Today body disposal is all a part of a days work at a wind farm. This tragic cover-up will continue until it is made a felony to conceal fatalities at wind farms. Not until enough people stand up against this industry can they be forced to implement new turbine designs into their wind farms. Until then the profiteers will lie, pacify the public with bogus studies, claim they are working on the problem, and continue to make their fortunes from these killers.

Today the California Condor habitat in the mountainous region of Tehachapi and Tejon ranch has been destroyed for the condors. This is due to the thousands of lethal wind turbines constructed in their natural habitat. The wind industry has made a complete mockery of the condor recovery. Despite the success of condor breeding programs there are few if any free flying condors and it will stay that way as long as there are propeller style turbines. Now the condors primarily just wander from perches close to the stations where the carcasses are dumped. If condors start to wander, they are trapped so they will not perish.

The new propeller style wind turbines reach 400- 500 ft into the sky and have a kill zone 30-45 times the area of the famous eagle killing turbines built at Altamont Pass. Now a wind farm of just 50 turbines is equivalent to 1500-2250 of theses early turbines. The blade tips on the new models with 12 ton blades, rip through the air at over 220-240 mph when spinning at 20 just rotations per minute. This is twice as fast as the old turbines and over three times the speed of a major league baseball bat swing. The industry does not like to talk about these facts but this is the truth.

Despite industry propaganda, cats, windows, cars etc. kill almost no rare and endangered species such as Condors, Whooping Cranes, Red Kites, Tasmanian Wedge Tailed Eagles, and Egyptian Vultures. I could go on and on with this industry death list. The fact is, once these turbines are put into their foraging and nesting habitats they become the primary killers of these species. The reality is that no bird or bat is safe from these turbines. The public rarely hears about it because of bogus studies, wind farm security and carefully written contracts with gag orders. Think about it. Why would an honest industry ever need gag orders? Why would they rig Environmental Impact Documents? Why hide bodies?

Well, it's good to know that feral cats are not the main killer of birds. If you add in airplane birdstrike,environmental poisoning, and delinquents with projectile weapons, the cute kitty cat is not the villian as it is portrayed by cat hating fanatics. It's ok to love cats on the internet.

For the public to keep all this in proper perspective, one must keep in mind that state and federal renewable energy mandates that were written into law were created by the investors behind the wind industry. The laws that absolve the wind industry from killing endangered species were also created by them. These deliberate actions created a demand for their products and enabled the industry to circumvent Federal Wildlife Laws. It is time to rethink what has taken place and acknowledge the terrible impact this industry is having on bird and bat species across the world. New non-lethal turbine designs have to be put into production. If not, then there will be the inevitable extinction of several bird species in the near future.